


Come Clean

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Series: Gaidencraft [1]
Category: Saiyuki, Saiyuki Gaiden
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lovecraft Fusion, M/M, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6228763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Show me yours, and I'll show you...wait, I can't top that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Clean

**Author's Note:**

> I was bemoaning the lack of Elder Gods in my fandoms, and Rana said, "What? Aren't Kenren and Tenpou 'Elder' enough for you?" :3

Kenren knocked first, loudly, but he wasn't too surprised when no one answered. He hadn't exactly been holding his breath, knowing the Marshal's tendency to get lost in his work, although calling it 'work' was no doubt stretching things a bit.

"Probably buried under his books again," he muttered, trying the door.

He felt a bump when he pushed it open, heard the unmistakable sound of books being slid across the floor as they were shoved aside, and he stuck his head in with a strained grin nailed on tight. "Hey, Tenpou. You've taken my advice and hired a housekeeper, right?"

From the looks of the room, no. Which was a pity in one sense--Kenren didn't even like cleaning up his own office, which was why he spent so little time there--but had its uses in another. Dropping by periodically to make sure Tenpou didn't get lost in the mess gave him a foot in the door. If it also happened to give him a Tenpou bent over the desk once they excavated it, then everybody won.

"Oh. Kenren? What are you doing here?"

_Pouting, at the moment,_ he almost said, a little put out at Tenpou's reply. Even after a careful perusal of the room, he still couldn't spot the man anywhere, but unless Tenpou had learned to throw his voice, he had to be in here somewhere. Maybe behind the piles of paperwork on the desk, or amongst the towering stacks of books that barricaded off the windows, or hidden in the maze of flower-collection boxes, writing kits, painted masks and priceless--if somewhat tattered--silks, crudely-fashioned peasant tools from the human lands, crates leaking straw stuffing, and a pornographic statue of some many-armed foreign goddess doing something improbable with a skull. Or maybe she was just dressed that way.

Tenpou didn't sound happy to see him, though, whether or not Tenpou could, in fact, see him. That stung Kenren's pride just enough that he let himself in fully, shutting the door behind him and hooking his thumbs in his belt. "Oh, you know...the usual. Heaven gets so unbearable when you don't remind them what true perfection is, so I like to show my face every once in a while. Just doing my duty for my fellow gods."

Though he waited expectantly for the dry comeback he knew would be hovering on Tenpou's lips, he was sadly disappointed.

"Um. I'm not...dressed for company," Tenpou said, sounding unusually flustered.

Kenren felt his eyes go as wide as his grin. "Tell you what, Marshal, sir. Wave a hand, and I'll join you."

"A hand," Tenpou said distractedly. "Hmm."

Something bumped Kenren's foot as he glanced around the cluttered room, but that had happened before, so he didn't jump or even look down immediately. They really weren't supposed to take things from the world below--not living things, anyway--but Tenpou had a tendency to be adopted rather fiercely by stray animals under the age of reason. It sort of reminded Kenren of Konzen Douji, if the Divine Prick's new monkey was any indication. The nudge at his boot came again, and it wasn't _soft_ exactly, just...diffuse. Not like the batting of a cat's paw or the curious snuffling of a dog's nose; more like the polite slither of a snake's coil across his toes, now curling around his ankle.

Frowning in puzzlement, he looked down and blinked, then blinked again. It didn't help.

"Whoa."

There was a...well, it was a tentacle, he supposed. Only he hadn't realized they'd started making octopi that big, or suckerless, or skin-colored. It was the 'skin-colored' that worried him, because the tentacle-thing led off further into the room, hooked out of sight behind a poorly-planned attempt at a concise archive of Poisoning Through the Ages imagined as a pile of books leaning towards Heaven--or Earth, depending on your place in the universal scheme--and Tenpou had to be back there somewhere as well.

It was an interesting thought, to say the least.

"Uh, Tenpou? If this is a bad time, I can come back later. I mean, what you do in your own office is your own business--it's not like we're married or anything, and--uh...Tenpou?"

It didn't just have him by the ankle anymore. It was starting to curl its way up his leg.

"Sorry. It's, um...instinct, I think."

That was when the third possibility occurred in a proverbial flash not unlike divine revelation.

"Huh. So if I told you to just wave anything...?"

Hesitantly, almost shyly, a second tentacle peeked over the top of the desk and swayed snakelike for a moment before being bashfully withdrawn.

"Right," Kenren said, rolling his neck until it popped and tugging briskly at the cuffs of his gloves. "No one's ever said I was afraid to try new things. Turn me loose, Tenpou. This I gotta see."


End file.
